Analysis Of Vladimir Putin’s Actions During The Annexation Of Crimea

In the early months of 2014, Vladimir Putin shocked the international community when he sent thousands of Russian troops into Crimea. Other than sanctions and strong words of condemnation, none of the world’s prominent leaders took any serious actions against the Russian president. Putin, being the rational leader that he is, took a calculated risk– that the strategic benefits of annexing Crimea far outweighed the likelihood of US or NATO military intervention in the region. This strategy of maximizing power and security even if it means defying international norms is known as offensive realism. In an offensive realist world, states are rational, unitary actors that pursue their interests at all costs. Often, it is a state’s geography that dictates its interests. The geography of the region forced Putin to pursue a strategy consistent with offensive realism, which eventually led to the annexation of Crimea.

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries Russian geopolitical influence and, consequently, security diminished as NATO crept eastward, which meant that Putin had to act. In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, offensive realist scholar John Mearsheimer writes that fear is a key motivator for all states. By 2004, Russia had a lot to fear. Only fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, every former member of the Warsaw Pact, excluding Russia, had joined either NATO or the European Union. The security dilemma, a prominent theory in international relations, says that security is zero-sum, so if one state increases its security it automatically decreases the security of other states. In 2014, NATO had significant influence in Eastern Europe. In years prior, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova all expressed interest in joining either NATO or the European Union, which, in Russia’s eyes, was unacceptable.2Thus, Russia needed to send a signal to NATO that it must stop expanding eastward. Russia needs Ukraine to have a pro-Russian government so that Ukraine can continue to act as a buffer zone between NATO and Russia. In the months leading up to the invasion, Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yanukovych, came close to signing a trade deal with the European Union. Russia believed that this could have eventually led to Ukrainian membership, so Putin outbid the European Union. After Yanukovych signed the trade deal with Russia, protests erupted throughout Ukraine. On February 22, 2014, President Yanukovych fled Ukraine. This allowed Putin to send in troops and take control of Crimea. In a speech following the invasion, Putin stated that “Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard.” This type of language is consistent with offensive realism in that demonstrates how, when faced with an existential threat, a great power will use force. Since the international system is anarchic and no actor was going to combat NATO’s growth, Russia had to take aggressive measures to ensure its own security and survival. In the 21st century, the international community has decided that territorial conquest is no longer acceptable; however, according to offensive realists, “states operating in a self-help world almost always act according to their own self-interest and do not subordinate their interests to the interests of other states, or to the interests of the so-called international community.” Putin ignored international norms because Russia saw itself as facing an existential threat.

In addition to increasing NATO influence in Eastern Europe, the physical geography of the region forced Putin into pursuing hawkish policies in Crimea. The North European Plain stretches from France to the Ural Mountains, and it presents a large problem for Russian leaders. At its narrowest, in Poland, the North European Plain is 300 miles wide, but it is over 2,000 miles wide at the Russian border. If an enemy state were to invade Russia, their only feasible option is to cross the NEP, which is why Russia has tried to occupy Poland countless times throughout history. Since Poland possesses the narrowest section of the North European Plain, Russia wants to control the territory so that it is easier to block incoming militaries. In order to protect itself from invasion, Russia wants its western boarder as west of Moscow and St. Petersburg as possible so that enemy supply lines are unsustainable. Many people today would argue that no one wants to invade Russia, but that is not how Putin sees it. In the past 500 years, Poland, Sweden, France, and Germany have all invaded Russia from the west. In fact, “if you count from Napoleon’s invasion of 1812, but this time include the Crimean war of 1853-56 and the two world wars up to 1945, then the Russians were fighting on average in or around the North European Plain once every thirty-three years.” Russia has reason to fear invasion from the west because there is ample historical evidence of enemies taking advantage of the flatness of the North European Plain. Offensive realists argue that one of the most effective ways of deterring an enemy invasion is to create a buffer zone. By annexing Crimea, Putin was able to push Russia’s border further west, thus increasing Russia’s security.

In addition to increasing the size of the buffer zone between Russia and NATO, annexing Crimea furthered Russia’s interest by giving them access to the port at Sevastopol. Excluding Sevastopol, Russia does not have a year-round, warm-water port. This is not a recent phenomenon. Throughout history, Russian leaders have looked for ways to gain access to warm-water ports. Peter the Great encouraged his successors to expand all the way to the Persian Gulf. In the words of one Russian politician, the invasion of Afghanistan took Russia one step closer to being able to “wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.” All other Russian ports freeze for months on end, which decreases Russia’s ability to trade and protect itself. Once the Ukraine looked like it might become pro-West, Russia’s access to Sevastopol became questionable. A pro-western Ukraine might have even allowed a NATO naval base at Sevastopol, which would be a blatant threat to Russian security. Even if NATO and Ukraine promised Russia access to the port, it is impossible to know a state’s true intentions. To offensive realists, promises are meaningless. If Ukraine were to allow a NATO naval base in Sevastopol, it could always be used against Russia. Thus, Russia needed to ensure it had access to its only year-round, warm-water port, so Putin decided to conquer it for the Russian Federation. Even with Sevastopol, however, Russia still has hoops to jump through when it comes to trade. Turkey, a NATO member, controls access out of the Black Sea, and Turkey would never allow Russian ships out of the Black sea in the event of conflict. Once Russian ships leave the Black Sea, they must sail through the Mediterranean Sea or pass through the Suez Canal. If Russia and NATO were to go to war, Russia’s navy would have little power– especially considering that NATO members Norway and Denmark control the Baltic Sea and Skagerrak Strait. Even with Sevastopol, Russia’s navy faces serious challenges, but without Sevastopol Russia’s navy is rendered practically useless.

Russia knew that infringing on Ukraine’s sovereignty and capturing the port of Sevastopol was risky, but, thanks to geography and offensive realist theory, it was able to correctly predict that no other states would go to war over the invasion. Mearsheimer writes that the probability of armed conflict is significantly lower when two powers are separated by a large body of water. It is difficult and expensive to fight wars over oceans, and Putin, being a rational actor, took this into account when he decided to annex Crimea. He also took into account the basic fact that “for better or for worse, states are rarely willing to expend blood and treasure to protect foreign populations from gross abuses.” The United States may claim to be the human right’s champion of the world, but in the end they were not willing to fight for the rights of the people of Crimea, and Putin predicted that they would not. Since the world is anarchic, there was no power that Putin had to answer to before invading Crimea, and there was no higher authority to force him into returning it. Opponents to the annexation claim that the move was an irrational power grab or that Putin took Crimea just because he could. However, these theories fail to take into account basic geopolitics. As previously mentioned, Putin has demonstrated to be a rational actor. He weighed the potential costs of annexing Crimea against the benefit of increasing Russian security and made the rational choice. Russia believes that Ukraine must be a buffer zone between them and NATO, and any threat to Ukraine’s position as a buffer zone is a direct threat to Russian security. Putin warned NATO and the European Union to stay away from Ukraine, but they refused to listen. They, as Putin said, continued to compress the spring until Russia had no choice but to snap back.

Bibliography

• Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
• Marshall, Tim. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World. New York: Scribner, 2016.
•  “Ukraine Crisis: Why Russia Sees Crimea as Its Naval Stronghold.” The Guardian, April 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/07/ukraine-russia-crimea-naval-base-tatars-explainer.
• Sykes, Percy Molesworth. A History of Persia. Vol. 2. Madison, WI: Macmillan and Company, 1921.
• Erlanger, Steven. “Russian Nationalist Wants To Rebuild Czars' Empire.” The New York Times, December 13, 1993. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/13/world/russian-nationalist-wants-to-rebuild-czars-empire.html.